The Plot to Take Down a Fox News Analyst

March 2, 2016 12:23 PM

How a former CIA spook became suspicious of a Fox News analyst's claims to be a former CIA operative, and how he may or may not have brought him down.
posted by Pope Guilty (41 comments total)

"The program I was in was so black it made the black hole seem white."
*eyeroll*
posted by redsparkler at 12:30 PM on March 2, 2016 [6 favorites]

Lying bullshitter bullshits live on FOX News? Say it ain't so.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:35 PM on March 2, 2016 [8 favorites]

In late 2013, [former C.I.A. officer and intelligence contractor] Clizbe and [high-ranking Senior Intelligence Service officer] M. developed a plan to extract a confession from Simmons. Their method would be a good-cop/bad-cop interrogation, carried out where Simmons would least suspect it: on Facebook.

I am beginning to understand how the United States has failed to win a war since 1946.
posted by Mayor West at 12:52 PM on March 2, 2016 [24 favorites]

Wow I just hate both these guys though.
posted by FritoKAL at 12:52 PM on March 2, 2016 [11 favorites]

Jesus, the shit that guy got away with. He was a felon who possessed firearms, was trying to get fucking SAMs into the US, involved in illegal gambling and narcotics and he "was found guilty, but his sentence was suspended and he was placed on five-year probation."

Clizbe (the actual former CIA agent) on recruiting spies, "This process of elicitation is really like the slow hitching up of a woman’s skirt.’’ Classy, but I suppose that's about what you'd expect.
posted by ODiV at 12:53 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Even if he's a fraud, he apparently actually was the manager of "an adult-entertainment hot-tub complex" in the '70s. He should just go on TV and talk about that.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:00 PM on March 2, 2016 [19 favorites]

I liked the part where Simmons avoided spending a day in prison for his 2 DUIs, public assault of a taxi driver, 6-figure defrauding of an ex-girlfriend, possession of firearms as a felon, and open attempts to procure honest-to-god fucking MISSILES, but now he's facing serious jail time for lying about his CIA background on an employment application to a defense contractor.
posted by Mayor West at 1:02 PM on March 2, 2016 [31 favorites]

There's also Clizbe's self-publishing career: Willing Accomplices: How K.G.B. Covert Influence Agents Created Political Correctness and Destroyed America and Obliterating Exceptionalism: A Chronicle of Obama’s Politically Correct Progressive Destruction of America. Charming.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:06 PM on March 2, 2016 [11 favorites]

[Clizbe] was sent to an island overseas, where he worked a day job unrelated to his real responsibilities. At night he recruited spies.
...
[Simmons] claims that he was done in by a vindictive Obama administration, which is taking advantage of the fact that his agency past, while real, is almost unfathomably classified. ‘‘Nobody could see us,’’ he said. ‘‘Nobody knew who we were. The program I was in was so black it made the black hole seem white.’’

As alluded to by redsparkler above, claims like Simmons' are invariably bullshit. Everyone has a cover story, because they get paid and have taxes taken out of it and so forth. Even cops who go on deep-cover assignments where they don't interact with their own departments for years are still on the books.
posted by Etrigan at 1:11 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'ver read a lot about this Simmons character, and he fits the fake spy / ninja mold perfectly. (Fake ninjas, like Frank Dux, for example.)

They all have fantastical tales that, honestly, I never have understood how people fall for them. But they do. Regularly. And people of all stripes fall for it, too.

The sizzle to their stories is always movie-type bluster, and no specifics are ever provided. ("Deep cover, bla bla bla.") Oddly, that deep cover never includes shutting the fuck up about your exploits ... that part really never makes sense to me. The other trope is the mishmash of newspaper clippings that look like proof but actually aren't — just vague allusions to a thing that happened, that may or may not involve the subject.

As already noted, the real kicker is that for all the terrible things Simmons did, he's only in trouble for pretending to be a CIA agent. Truth is always stranger than fiction.
posted by Dark Messiah at 1:15 PM on March 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

The desperation that this guy is showing while clinging to this intensely fictional life is fascinating and really sad. How depressed or deluded or just plain a mess does this guy have to be to cling to this? At this point he probably feels like he can't go back on it, because he'll end in jail for the rest of his life. But he's going to end up there anyway - maybe the best he can hope for is a emotional breakdown and treatment for whatever horrible circumstances he has going on that have gotten him to this point.

(I mean I'm 99.999% sure it's fiction, but I read too many bad pulp spy novels to give it that last .001%)

I still think he and Clizbe are both assholes, but I also feel kind of sorry for this guy because not only is he an asshole, he's a tragic mess whose only moment of Feeling Special And Awesome is an elaborate pile of lies.
posted by FritoKAL at 1:16 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ah ha ha. We all know that membership in the CIA is the same thing as being a traitor to everything the United States stands for. But who's the real traitor, and who's just pretending to be a traitor? What a thing to fight over.
posted by koeselitz at 1:17 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

(Also: M? Seriously? Get over yourselves, dumbasses.)
posted by koeselitz at 1:18 PM on March 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

Yeah these people all seem repellent, for a variety of reasons. Interesting story.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 1:40 PM on March 2, 2016

Ugh, notice how Clizbe tried to write a story for the Washington Times and not WaPo.
posted by infinitewindow at 2:07 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Even if he's a fraud, he apparently actually was the manager of "an adult-entertainment hot-tub complex" in the '70s. He should just go on TV and talk about that.

Hot Tub Spy Machine. Watch for it in direct to DVD.
posted by srboisvert at 2:15 PM on March 2, 2016 [13 favorites]

This would be a much more interesting story if I thought Fox News cared about the integrity of their on-air experts. There's just no real win in this situation, fake CIA wingnut blowhard is found out and replaced by actual CIA wingnut blowhard. Can we tell the difference? No.
posted by doctor_negative at 2:19 PM on March 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

The best part is that it seems Clizbe only shopped the story to conservative "news" sources rather than, oh, the New York Times. It's almost as if they have a vested interest in keeping up the absurd fiction that Fox News isn't a hotbed of bullshit artists just like this dude?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:23 PM on March 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

How is Clizbe made?
posted by ethansr at 2:28 PM on March 2, 2016

The CIA in this Story Seems suspiciously like a certain movie's version of the CIA. Yes I mean "Burn after Reading".
posted by From Bklyn at 2:38 PM on March 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am beginning to understand how the United States has failed to win a war since 1946.

Untrue. The US won the 1990-1991 Gulf War. They shattered a large, fairly modern, battle-hardened army at a 100:1 casualty ratio and achieved their war aims less than two weeks after starting the ground war. Kuwait was retaken and held without a long term insurgent resistance. The war was so efficient and disturbingly brutal as to make the US look militarily omnipotent right up until the hubristic failings of Bush II.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:35 PM on March 2, 2016 [8 favorites]

To be fair, everything this guy (eventually) says happened to him is pretty much what happened to Sydney Bristow in the JJ Abrams TV show Alias, false-flagged by an international criminal conspiracy into thinking she was deep-cover CIA operative.

If Simmons starts telling stories about how he was sent around the globe to be the first to recover Da Vinci (or similar) codices and artifacts which, though centuries old, reveal a technology that's significantly more advanced than our own, then I promise I will believe every word. Especially if there's a big red ball and some Slusho involved.
posted by Sunburnt at 3:36 PM on March 2, 2016 [8 favorites]

Him getting away with tons of things with no jail time probably points to something (Undercover informant for the police or something?). But it also is a big point against his claims - if you were really in a quadruple deep cover CIA program, the agency would definitely let you go to jail for a few years just to give you legitimacy.

Not to mention at the end where he claims the CIA would save him from this jail time too - even if everything he said was true, he would have burned off all goodwill years ago. The CIA would rather let him rot in jail than do anything that might in any way be seen as legitimizing his claims.
posted by ymgve at 3:39 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Him getting away with tons of things with no jail time probably points to something.

Well, if some of it happened while he was with the Saints, I'd say that's just NOPD.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:17 PM on March 2, 2016

Untrue. The US won the 1990-1991 Gulf War. They shattered a large, fairly modern, battle-hardened army at a 100:1 casualty ratio and achieved their war aims less than two weeks after starting the ground war. Kuwait was retaken and held without a long term insurgent resistance. The war was so efficient and disturbingly brutal as to make the US look militarily omnipotent right up until the hubristic failings of Bush II.

I mean, one could probably even include the opening to the Iraq War. The U.S. doesn't have a problem in state v. state warcraft. The issues start to occur with asymmetric, insurgent warfare, and it's not even clear to me that those wars can ever even be won decisively.
posted by Dalby at 4:44 PM on March 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Has anyone thoroughly vetted this Clizbe guy?
posted by TedW at 5:25 PM on March 2, 2016

That was very interesting to read, but also infuriating. I'm just amazed at the human capacity for getting swindled.
posted by Man Bites Dog at 5:38 PM on March 2, 2016

Fascinating read and shocking that he's managed to get away with so much for so long. Simmons sounds like he has some severe issues.

it's not even clear to me that those wars can ever even be won decisively

In asymmetrical conflict it's hard to find a definite victor, but it can happen; the Malayan emergencies and the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation were bloody affairs that resulted in fairly decisive victories for the Commonwealth.
posted by dazed_one at 5:44 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I find myself disliking everyone involved.
posted by humanfont at 5:56 PM on March 2, 2016

TedW, can't say for sure, but since Berntsen definitely is the real deal I would assume Clizbe is as well.
posted by Man Bites Dog at 6:16 PM on March 2, 2016

Point of order: in this context, 'analyst' is a typo. It's 'anal cyst.'
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:44 PM on March 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

My BS meter goes off when guys (and it always seems to be dudes) boast about their spook antics and how deep they were under cover. If you did so much work in the field, why would you risk undoing any of it* by talking so openly about it?

I get that people want attention and recognition, but those seem like things you kind of check at the door when deciding to become a career spook. They call it the silent service for a reason.

*including the possibility of getting your colleagues/friends/associates imprisoned or killed
posted by strange chain at 9:15 PM on March 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

They call it the silent service for a reason.

I think that's submarines.
posted by zamboni at 9:25 PM on March 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Oh boy! Sleep! That's where I'm a CIA agent!
posted by Samizdata at 9:39 PM on March 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think that's submarines.

Gah, further proof I'm not cut out for that life.
posted by strange chain at 9:44 PM on March 2, 2016

My BS meter goes off when guys (and it always seems to be dudes) boast about their spook antics and how deep they were under cover.

These sorts of dudes, it reminds me of a segment I saw on Dirty Jobs, where the job in question was a salvage diver. Mike asked "So what did you used to do, before you did this?" and the guy said "Well, I was in the military."

"Oh yeah? What branch?"

"I, uh, I was in the Navy."

"Yeah? What'd you do there?"

"Oh, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, I did some diving, I did some other stuff."

Mike's eyes bugged out and he said "You were a SEAL!"

The guy, I swear to God, blushed, and he took off his hat and rubbed his head and said "Yeah, uh. Yeah, I was a SEAL."

In my experience, that is exactly how someone who is actually a badass handles their badassery -- as little as possible and with great remove. Anyone who is SUUUUPER into telling you what a badass they are can be instantly written off as a dbag.
posted by KathrynT at 9:53 PM on March 2, 2016 [16 favorites]

I am beginning to understand how the United States has failed to win a war since 1946.

Untrue. The US won the 1990-1991 Gulf War.

And don't forget Grenada. Clint Eastwood starred in the movie.
posted by JackFlash at 11:03 PM on March 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

There used to be a character on Broadway, a street alcoholic who used to hang around Ileen's back in the day who everyone called the FUCK YOU, I'M AN AMERICAN guy after one of his more notable rants. But otherwise, he was a jovial guy who talked to everyone who passed.

He once hit up a friend for some beer change on the street and said friend said, 'You know what ? Let me buy you a drink...' and took him to the Deluxe and bought him a glass of fairly nice Scotch.

And the guy starts talking to the next guy at the bar next to him on the other side from my friend and they just hit it off like they've known each other for years. And the guy asks him, 'So, what did you used to do, anyway ?'

NAVY SEAL!!! TREAD WATER FOR THREE DAYS!!!
posted by y2karl at 9:53 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

I assume that the cohort of actual CIA operatives who don't come across like reactionary cranks are the ones who never go public about their work. At least I hope so. (Example: Valerie Plame Wilson, whose CIA deep-cover career we only know about because of the late unlamented Robert Novak.) But the reactionary crank cohort clearly creates an environment in which bullshit artists can thrive.
posted by holgate at 10:29 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

holgate: “I assume that the cohort of actual CIA operatives who don't come across like reactionary cranks are the ones who never go public about their work. At least I hope so. (Example: Valerie Plame Wilson, whose CIA deep-cover career we only know about because of the late unlamented Robert Novak.) But the reactionary crank cohort clearly creates an environment in which bullshit artists can thrive.”

Even very nice people can apparently become deluded enough to believe that membership in an organization responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents and the destruction of the American way of life is a nice thing that might be counted as worthwhile. But I would warrant that most people in the CIA are actually just terrible, terrible human beings.
posted by koeselitz at 11:56 AM on March 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Of course the the U.S. has not won a war, imagine committing every effort that is required to declare war.
Imagine if we declared war on Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Panama, Dominican Republic, Iraq and Afghanistan!

That would seem insane because Russia might have had something to say about it.

The merican people (represented by congress) would not stand for it.

Remember the Glomar!
posted by clavdivs at 9:46 PM on March 9, 2016